International Aid Efforts Research Articles

The Impact of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict on Food and Economy in Gaza

The continuous Israeli-Palestinian conflict has had a destructive impact on Gaza, resulting in a serious food crisis and economic collapse. The military operations and the following blockade resulted in more than 30000 Gazans being killed and over 1.1 million Gazans faced catastrophic hunger, which had a huge impact on the economy. As the fundamental sector of Gaza’s economy, the agricultural department was attacked by Israel’s military operations and impacted by the destruction of agricultural infrastructures including greenhouses, and irrigation facilities. The current situation led to a striking decrease in local food production and supply and also resulted in a complete social and economic collapse. This paper discusses the consequences of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The paper emphasizes that in order to solve the serious humanitarian crisis requires international aid and diplomatic efforts, ensuring the agricultural department can operate normally and reopening the supply routes at the same time to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Child circulation in disaster contexts: The case of the 2010 Haiti earthquake

AbstractThis article examines how disasters and epidemics affect childrearing practices. Specifically, it looks at how the 2010 earthquake and cholera epidemic in Haiti affected transnational child circulation practices along the Haiti‐Dominican Republic border. Foster children and orphans were prominent in international humanitarian aid efforts. Our findings from ethnographic research conducted on the Haiti‐Dominican Republic border from 2004–2010 show that decontextualized child‐rescue focused interventions were more detrimental to children and families than the earthquake and epidemic themselves. While well‐intentioned, child‐focused measures increased the vulnerability of thousands of children and their families. They also restricted the pre‐existing transborder movement of children that characterized the area.

White Savior or Local Hero?: Conflicting Narratives of Help in Haiti

White Savior or Local Hero?:Conflicting Narratives of Help in Haiti Diane M. Hoffman (bio) In 2010, Haiti experienced a devastating earthquake that killed over two hundred thousand people and resulted in a vast but ultimately ineffective international humanitarian aid and relief effort. This article considers how the recent August 2021 earthquake has produced a shift in the rescue and assistance narrative that has emphasized the trope of Haitian agency when responding to hardship and disasters. Based on a critical reading of Facebook posts, online news media, and organization websites, this piece argues that while the current shift toward emphasizing themes of Haitian agency and empowerment appears to be a positive trend, a deeper reading suggests that Haitian notions of help and solidarity conflict with the neoliberal understanding of empowerment. Furthermore, narratives about assistance prioritize emotions of white missionaries and aid workers, revealing the persistence of White Saviorism in representations of Haitian agency. Introduction One of the most devastating natural disasters in the Western Hemisphere, the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti which affected Port-au-Prince and surrounding areas unleashed a globally unprecedented level of humanitarian assistance. Nonetheless, the response to the disaster is widely regarded as a manifest failure. Billions of dollars were funneled through approximately two thousand nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and private contractors, creating a fragmented response that lacked accountability.1 An astoundingly small portion of this aid actually reached the Haitian government and people.2 Furthermore, there was no infrastructure to absorb the sudden influx of supplies and personnel, and needs were defined largely without input from those most affected—indeed, the entire aid apparatus largely excluded Haitian voices and involvement.3 Thousands of young American volunteers, armed with little but good intentions, descended on the capital to "help," straining what were already stressed resources.4 Instead of highlighting Haitians' own rescue and assistance efforts, extensive news coverage of the disaster prominently featured actions of Americans and Europeans,5 reinforcing the sense that Haiti was incapable of helping itself. Eleven years later, the response to the August 2021 earthquake in Southern Haiti was palpably different. Prime Minister Ariel Henry told news media, "We will not repeat the same things that were done in 2010 … A lot of donations were made to the country, and a lot of money was spent without seeing the impact."6 Recognizing that Haiti-based organizations were better positioned to conduct needs assessments and allocate aid, Haitian and Haiti-affiliated diaspora groups, celebrities, and academics sent strong messages on social media platforms and various professional list-serves recommending that would-be donors give to local, Haiti-based organizations rather than to large international relief organizations.7 Further, would-be donors were advised not to send physical resources, but to support the local economy by providing funds for resources to be bought locally.8 Organizations told foreign volunteers to stay home; teams of trained Haitians were instead sent into remote areas to deliver relief. White [End Page 99] missionaries and NGO staff living in Haiti filled social media with comments praising the presence of Haitian relief workers on the scene: "I love to see Haitians helping Haitians!"; "Helping in the South—let's start a movement as we post pictures of Haitians working together!"; "I love to see Haitians so passionately serving one another!"9 In sum, a broad consensus emerged that the response to the recent disaster should prioritize Haitian resources, voices, and agency. This effort to represent Haitians as actors capable of addressing their own needs can be read as a shift in the longstanding narrative of Haitian dependency. Instead of representing the country as dependent on handouts and help from foreigners, recent post-disaster narratives reflect a theme that scholars of international aid in Haiti have been pointing out for some time: the way media and policymakers consistently emphasize the role of foreign actors, initiatives, and resources obscures the fact that Haitians have always helped themselves through strong traditions of collective community responses to hardship and disaster.10 This was as true in 2010 as it was after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, which also devastated the southern part of the country.11 As these scholars have pointed out, understanding Haitian traditions...

A Cold War Humanitarian Action: The Western Admission of 1956 Hungarian Refugees

The story of the refugees who fled Hungary following the Soviet suppression of the 1956 Revolution and the coordinated international humanitarian operation launched to receive them is an outstanding chapter in the history of emigration. These refugees received far more favorable treatment than earlier Hungarian expatriates or other European refugees had been given. With a total of 200,000 refugees, their successful transportation to host countries and their subsequent integration represented an exceptional success for international aid efforts. How can this efficiency be explained? Trends in humanitarian sentiment in world public opinion, influenced in part by the horrors of World War II, and the increasingly precise formulation of the rights of the refugees were just as important, as factors, as the supportive attitude of the populations of Western countries, who empathized with the suppressed revolution. The exceptionally favorable composition, from the perspective of the labor market, of the mass of people who fled in 1956 coincided with Western economic prosperity, producing economic “miracles.” However, even these favorable initial conditions would not have led to such a swift and successful settlement in the West of nearly 200,000 Hungarians had it not been for the Cold War rivalry between the Eastern and the Western blocs. As a consequence of the ideological and propaganda conflict with the Soviets, the NATO governments had the necessary political will to give effective support for a resolution to the Hungarian refugee problem, even after emotional support among the public opinion had waned.

The Strategy of Indonesian Diplomacy Efforts and National Political Interests in the Ethnic Rohingya Refugee Conflict

The tragedy of ethnic Rohingya stems from the discriminatory treatment experienced decades ago in Myanmar. The lack of attention from the international community and humanitarian aid efforts for the Rohingya ethnic group in Myanmar has resulted in the wave of refugees fleeing from Myanmar to other countries is increasing, causing a sense of insecurity and instability in the region, especially South and Southeast Asia. This article aims to look at Indonesia's diplomacy strategy and Indonesia's national interests in the ASEAN region towards resolving the Rohingya ethnic conflict. This research observes Indonesia's national interest in this issue using a realism approach. The research was conducted using qualitative methods through literature studies and These data are analyzed, then described, or interpreted to obtain a complete picture of the answers to the problems under study. The results of the study found that the Indonesian government used a humanitarian diplomacy strategy as a bridge towards resolving cases of the Rohingya ethnicity in Myanmar. It was also found that Indonesia's interests in resolving Rohingya ethnic refugees have an interest in the security and political aspect, not just morality. Indonesia's humanitarian diplomacy role as a driver of democracy has been well received not only by the junta community but also by the international community.

Twentieth Century Black and Native Activism Against the Child Taking System

This Article argues that the historical record supports activism that takes the abolition of the child welfare system as its starting point, rather than its reform. It explores the birth of the modern child welfare system in the 1950s as part of the white supremacist effort to punish Black communities that sought desegregation of schools and other public accommodations; and Native communities that fought tribal termination and the taking of indigenous land. Beginning with the “segregation package” of laws passed by the Louisiana state legislature in 1960, the Article shows how cutting so-called “illegitimate” children off the welfare program, called Aid to Dependent Children, (ADC) and placing those whom their mothers could no longer support in foster care was an explicit response to school desegregation. While the National Urban League initially mounted a formidable national and international mutual aid effort, “Operation Feed the Babies,” its ultimate response—appealing to the federal government to reform the welfare and child welfare systems— backfired in disastrous ways. The Eisenhower administration responded by providing federal funds for a program it called ADC-foster care, giving states resources to dramatically expand the foster care system, resulting in hundreds of thousands of Black children in foster homes within a year. Native Tribal nations, in contrast, fought throughout the late 1960s and 70s to get states out of Indian child welfare. After a decade of activism, in 1978, they succeeded in passing the Indian Child Welfare Act, which put American Indian kids under the jurisdiction of tribal courts instead of the states’. Over the next decades, the number of Native children in foster care shrank dramatically. While history rarely offers clear guidance for the present, these two stories strongly suggest the limits of reform for state child welfare systems, and the wisdom of contemporary activists who call for abolition.

Interdisciplinary, Cross-practice, Cross-issue: Reflections on Field Studies of Heritage Struggles in Myanmar

My comments follow the call for interdisciplinary approaches in cultural heritage and the arts, looking to the meaning of interdisciplinary approaches in the context of scholarly engagement with efforts to promote World Heritage. In particular, I look to the issues of “doing” interdisciplinary studies in relation to the application of scholarly insights for international aid efforts involving World Heritage sites. My thoughts arise from experiences as an empirical scholar doing field work on World Heritage nominations in Myanmar, but as much as they connect to the circumstances of developing countries they also extend more generally to other locations. The argument is that intentions for interdisciplinary approaches in World Heritage practice are challenged by the structure of the international aid system, which is comprised of donors and aid providers with established practices. As a result, there is a need for scholars to consider ways of “doing” interdisciplinary studies in the promotion of World Heritage.

Vicious Aid for Vicious Times

This essay combines a note on the difficulties of doing research in West Asia before and during the Covid-19 pandemic with observations on the shift in the tone of international aid efforts. The author identifies a public "viciousness" to the publicity surrounding the aid sent and received internationally during the pandemic.

Educating Girls, Educated Women

After a half-century of failed top-down international aid efforts that ignore basic microeconomics, the New Development Economics (NDE) offers an alternative. First, sound institutions (such as rule of law, property rights, contractual enforcement, etc.); second, respect for basic microeconomic principles (from incentives to knowledge). Within the New Development Economics, development economist William Easterly offers controversial and innovative insights; one of these is the ineffectiveness of education - alone, and without sound institutions - for promoting growth. We argue that Easterly is generally correct, but we improve on Easterly's lessons by dehomogenizing education. Specifically, education for girls has high marginal returns: at the micro level, even a slight increase in education dramatically improves the health of girls - and their daughters - in a virtuous cycle. At the macro level, educated women have a significant marginal impact on growth and institutional improvement. We complement a theoretical approach with a case study that demonstrates the importance and marginal impact of educating girls - even if sounds institutions are not yet present.

Impact of climate change on sustainable livestock production and existence of wildlife and marine species in the South Pacific island countries: a review.

Climate change poses a significant threat to humanity by intensifying multiple hazards. South Pacific Island countries (SPICs) are affected and face a dire challenge to survival. Sea level rise is reducing the already limited land for human and animal habitation. Tropical cyclones and droughts are having devastating effects on the lives of humans and animals. Tropical cyclone Winston, for example, destroyed infrastructure for humans and animals in some parts of Fiji, and infectious diseases are spreading to regions where they are not commonly seen following cyclones and floods. Likewise, climate change is making droughts worse. Droughts are destroying crops and pasturelands and making freshwater unavailable for human and animal populations in the Solomon Islands and Tuvalu. There is an urgent need to ascertain the best approaches to tackle the events, which are already happening. Short-term changes can be managed at local levels through public awareness campaigns, understanding the weather patterns to prepare for disasters, reclaiming land, improving livestock breeds, introducing zoos and wildlife sanctuaries and inventing economically feasible technologies to harvest water. Long-term solutions depend on the implementation of international agreements, international aid and collective effort.

The Quest for Operational Priorities: Areas in Need of Strategic Development Intervention

AbstractThis article seeks to define a certain set of priority areas in need of strategic development-oriented intervention in contexts that are linked to failed, failing, and week states, including post-conflict societies. The need for prioritization is dictated, among others, by the scarcity of resources and an overall unenthusiastic climate for international aid and other development efforts. The very choice of the areas can in itself be conceived as a prioritization. These four priority areas, operationalized in the article, form the core of the argument, namely (1) effective institutions; (2) enforceable universalistic human rights /rule of law; (3) economic development; and (4) effectuation of supranational efforts and policies in line with contextual domestic circumstances.

Volunteerism after the Tsunami: The Effects of Democratization

Using three waves of survey data from fishing villages in Aceh, Indonesia for 2005–09, the paper examines the determinants of local volunteer labor after the tsunami. Volunteer labor is the village public sector labor force for maintenance, clean-up and renovation of public capital. While also examining the effects on volunteerism of village destruction and trauma, pre-existing social capital, diversity, and aid delivery, the papers focuses on the effects of democratization. The tsunami and massive international aid effort prompted the settlement of the insurgency movement in Aceh, which had led to suspension of local elections over the prior twenty or more years. Until 2006, village heads who call volunteer days were effectively selected by village elites, who may highly value the public facilities maintained by volunteer labor. With elections, volunteer days fall under the new regime, with democratically elected village heads calling fewer volunteer days, which may appeal more to the typical villager. Identification comes from pseudo-randomized differential timing of elections.

Israel’s International Squadron and the “Never Again” Mentality

Israel’s International Squadron 120, founded in 1964, embodied the “Never Again” post-Holocaust imperative of Israel’s identity ahead of its adoption on a national level. Beginning with an airlift mission to Yemen’s northern highlands in 1964, the squadron emerged as the long arm of Israel’s foreign policy during the nation’s “golden era” of the 1960s and subsequent decades. Through the continued influence of its early members, many of whom were survivors of the Holocaust, the squadron assumed the forefront of international humanitarian aid and rescue efforts. This article tells the story of this squadron through the oral histories of five of its original members.

Governing failure: development, aid and audit in Haiti

This paper analyses practices for monitoring, tracking and assessing the international aid and reconstruction efforts in Haiti in an attempt to ‘build back better’ from the devastation of the January 2010 earthquake. We suggest that aid and reconstruction efforts filter through an international network of development organisations. This network also acts as a governing auspice, overseeing the transformation of Haiti from a ‘failed state’ to a strong democratic state. The central governing mechanism in this reconstruction effort involves the embedding of the ideas and practices of audit within Haitian political and civic culture. We reveal how, in Haiti, this culture of audit monitors aid and reconstruction through biopolitical technologies such as benchmarks and performance indicators, and through the constitution of calculable and accountable entities. More than a means of implementing disaster recovery, audit culture is a technique of biopolitical governance that aims to transform Haiti's state, civic institutions and citizens into entities accountable to an international development agenda.

The rule of law, security-development and penal aid: The case of detention in Haiti

The combination of flawed penality, crushing poverty and a natural disaster that devastated Haiti’s already fragile criminal justice infrastructure made the country a fitting candidate for a new kind of international aid effort, which we call penal aid. This international aid effort uses rule of law theories and practices to develop credible criminal justice institutions and reform penal practice throughout the world. According to rule of law measures, detention indicates flawed justice and a weak state, whereas trial and transformative punishment promotes global security and poverty reduction. The rule of law is a method for punishing better, a mechanism of international aid, a measure of global security and a means for the recognition of law-abiding states. Rule of law reconstruction is about international state-crafting and remaking Haiti in the image of a global penal state.

IndianOcean Tsunami: Disaster, Generosity and Recovery

This paper is an exploratory investigation into the nature and effectiveness of international humanitarian aid effort after theIndianOcean tsunami disaster. Relief assistance poured in quickly and copiously, and helped avert ‘second mortality’ from exposure and starvation in the tsunami‐affected countries. Foreign aid also provided vital leeway in the reconstruction phase, but limited the aid absorptive capacity of the recipient countries and excessive competition among aid organizations (mostly non‐government organizations) hindered effective aid utilization. The findings of the present study make a strong case for designing policies and programs for dealing with disasters as an integral part of national development strategies and highlight the need for combining international aid commitments with solutions to the limited aid absorptive capacity of disaster‐affected countries.

Aid, governance and corruption control: a critical assessment

If the OECD’s Development Co-operation Report for 2009 is correct in its claim that ‘The international aid effort now adds up to less than the sum of its parts’, then continued rapid growth in aid transfers is likely to contribute to further aid absorption problems, as well as institutional atrophy and deteriorating governance and corruption control among aid recipients. This article considers aid for good governance and anti-corruption, using Tanzania as an example. “The supply side of aid” sketches the bigger picture in which such aid is located, stressing collective action problems facing the aid industry in the current period of growth and diversification. “The consequences of aid proliferation on corruption control in an aid-dependent state” provides some empirics from Tanzania. “Conclusions: whither ‘corruption control?’” draws some conclusions for the future of aid for governance and corruption control. A key message is that donor-driven governance and corruption control initiatives have failed to address the governance weaknesses that excessive and uncoordinated aid has helped to create.

Introduction: Transition to Where? Developing Post-Soviet Space

With the demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, international donors rushed to proffer advice. Their development teleology was one of “transition” from a centralized command economy to a liberal, democratic, market-driven economy. Popular ideologies of the period—neoliberalism, governance, and civil society— converged as policymakers designed development programs in line with the principles of what came to be known as the Washington Consensus. The dissolution of the USSR provided ideal laboratory conditions to test these ideologically driven policies. Today, two decades on, this model for transitioning to liberal democracy has crashed on the shoals of crony capitalism, authoritarianism, runaway corruption, population decline, and social dislocation. This introduction to the following cluster of articles offers a number of the guiding tenets of development aid in the former Soviet Union over the past two decades and attempts to show the connections between the categories of aid (for example, civil society, market reform) and the larger policy issues and ideologies that nurtured them. The articles in this cluster examine the political and scholarly tensions suggested when relations of power and difference are inextricably linked to international aid efforts. International aid fl owing to this region has been especially sensitive and marked in that it is directed at a former superpower—itself a long-term donor of aid and technical assistance to the Third World. The aid efforts Thanks to Mark D. Steinberg, whose enthusiasm for this thematic cluster has not wavered, despite what often felt like a gruelling and lengthy review process. The incomparable staff at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C., offered years of support for the project from which these articles stemmed. Two international workshops, generously funded by the Department of State’s Title VIII Program, took place under the auspices of the Kennan Institute. I would like to mention particularly Renata Kosc-Harmatiy, Will Pomeranz, Blair Ruble, and Maggie Paxson, who helped insure the success of these workshops. I would also like to acknowledge the numerous interlocutors, from the Department of State, USAID, and nongovernmental organizations, who generously shared their ideas and perspectives with the workshop participants, providing useful feedback. Though the papers of some of the workshop participants are not included here, their contributions to the synergy that emerged from our discussions has surely percolated through the cluster. The critical insights of Michael Borowitz, Alexander Danilenko, Bhavna Dave, and Scott Newton have incalculably enhanced my understanding of the multifaceted world of Central Asia and postsocialist development. I thank them for many years of enlightening conversations.

Are ‘New’ Donors Different? Comparing the Allocation of Bilateral Aid Between nonDAC and DAC Donor Countries

Major DAC donors are widely criticized for weak targeting of aid, selfish aid motives and insufficient coordination. The emergence of an increasing number of new donors may further complicate the coordination of international aid efforts. On the other hand, new donors (many of which were aid recipients until recently) may have competitive advantages in allocating aid according to need and merit. Project-level data on aid by new donors, as collected by the PLAID initiative, allow for empirical analyses comparing the allocation behavior of new versus old donors. We employ Probit and Tobit models and test for significant differences in the distribution of aid by new and old donors across recipient countries. We find that new donors (i) focus on closer neighbors, (ii) care less for recipient need, (iii) exhibit a weaker bias towards badly governed countries, (iv) respond to disasters, but with fewer resources than old donors, and (v) do not pursue commercial self interest.

Shocks, recovery trajectories and resilience among aquaculture-dependent households in post-tsunami Aceh, Indonesia

Aquaculture-dependent households in Bireuen District, Aceh, Indonesia, have in recent years endured repeated, diverse shocks; multiple economic shocks, shrimp disease, civil war and the 2004 Asian tsunami. Following the tsunami, extensive international aid efforts were directed at aquaculture pond rehabilitation. Yet, the pitfalls of simply recreating a system that was run down, underperforming and environmentally damaging due to the ongoing effects of multiple previous shocks are clear. Research reported here is one component of an action research project aimed at rebuilding improved, sustainable systems. The diversity of shocks experienced provided an unparalleled opportunity to look at the range of impacts and coping mechanisms employed at the household level. Detailed analysis of factors affecting rebuilding and recovery strategies from shocks highlighted the importance of diversification across multiple livelihood characteristics, as well as the multi-dimensional nature of diversification itself. Diversification in household livelihood strategy, aquaculture species availability and market options for aquaculture produce were all important factors contributing to recovery and resilience. The “distance” (degree of difference) among diversified options was shown to be critical in building resilience.